Daddy on Her Doorstep

“Here’s the head … take some short breaths now,” he said. The shoulder was a little stuck. He needed a gloved hand and a well-practiced technique to free it, and then out came the slippery body. “Fabulous, it’s a girl, Gina,” he told the mom. “Congratulations, both of you.” Nurse Kate passed him a couple of instruments and he cut and clamped the cord.

The dad squeezed his wife’s shoulders and buried his face in her hair. Both new parents were tearful and gushy, and there was no doubt about the health of the baby. She was crying and waving her little arms, but when they placed her on her mom’s warm tummy she nestled and snuggled and it was wonderful.

But very late at night, second night in a row. His patients always seemed to give birth in clusters.

Andy delivered the placenta, checked the baby and the birth canal, made the necessary notes, all the small medical and administrative tasks that most new parents were too absorbed in their baby to notice. The high that everyone felt after a successful birth began to ebb and he started to think about a dark, quiet room, smooth sheets, closed eyes, warm dreams …

It was almost four when he turned into his driveway, and there was a light on in Claudia’s front window. He saw a shadow moving behind the closed drapes as he came up the porch steps, and a floorboard creaked. What was she doing up this late? Was something wrong?

He was still thinking like a doctor who’d just delivered a baby. Didn’t even pause to question his action, just knocked at her door and called out, “Claudia? Everything okay in there?”

He heard footsteps and the rattle of the doorknob. A gap of light appeared, partially blocked by a very tired and grumpy figure, holding a mug of hot chocolate with her little finger bent outward. “I’m pregnant and I can’t sleep. Or breathe. What’s your problem?”

“Called out for a delivery.”

The gap opened wider. “Oh? At Mitchum Medical Center?”

“That’s where all my patients go, unless it’s something really serious.”

“That’s right, you told me that last week. I liked it when I took a tour, but haven’t made a decision yet. Was it a good team? Did everything go well?”

“Textbook-perfect. Apart from happening in the middle of the night.”

“Isn’t that when they always happen?”

“Sure feels that way.” He hid a yawn behind his closed hand.

“Come in. You look cold. I’m sorry I sounded snippy. If you have any ideas about the not-sleeping thing …”

He was in her living room before he knew it. She’d lit the fire in the brick-and-tile hearth and the warm air smelled of chocolate and a hint of woodsmoke. She was wearing a fluffy white robe and sheepskin boots. Free of makeup, her eyes had little creases at the corners from lack of sleep. Her hair sat in its usual knot, but it was lopsided and fuzzy with tangles. It looked like a robin’s nest about to fall out of the fork of a tree.

“Looks like you’re doing all the right things,” he said. “Hot drink, warm air.”

“Except I’m so hot in bed.” She said it with total innocence, still grumpily focused on her discomfort and frowning at the fire, and he was shocked at the reply his very male mind came up with—luckily not out loud.

Hot in bed? I’ll bet you are.

The grumpy expression and bird’s-nest hair were weirdly sexy, for a start, as well as those fingers curved around her mug. And what was underneath the robe?

“It’s so crazy,” she went on. “In the daytime, I can go to sleep on the couch or on top of my comforter like that.” She took a hand from the mug and snapped her fingers. “At night, when I climb between the sheets … not happening.”

“So sleep on the couch at night.”

“That’s why I lit the fire. It’s kind of soothing when it crackles. I can watch the flames till my eyes get sleepy. Right now, I think that’s an hour away. Would you like some hot chocolate?”

She sounded wistful and eager at the same time, as if she really did want the company, and he wondered why this baby didn’t have a father.

Why had there needed to be that crisp, distancing announcement, the day they first met, about sperm donation and planned pregnancy? Just how impossible was she to live with? Or just how exacting in her standards about men? Had something happened in the past to scare her off?

Or did she try too hard, like Laura?

Laura had crammed his house with heart-shaped objects and romantic sayings on fridge magnets. She’d told him, “I love you,” so many times that the words lost all meaning. She’d created elaborate “date nights” after he’d worked eighteen hours straight and then sulked when he didn’t want to take part, and generally poked and prodded at their relationship until it died like an overfed fish.

Claudia didn’t seem exacting and impossible. Right now, she seemed adorable and sexy without knowing it and more alone than she should be a month from giving birth. He couldn’t say no to her. He should say it, but—

“Hot chocolate would be great.” He began to follow her to the kitchen, but she shook her head.

“Sit! I’m going to reheat this one while I’m there, I didn’t give it long enough.” She gestured to the mug in her hand.

He heard the refrigerator open and shut, and then the microwave. After a couple of minutes she reappeared, walking gracefully but super carefully with the two mugs so that the foamy chocolate didn’t spill. She’d filled them too full.

The pink tip of her tongue appeared at the corner of her mouth, the way a little girl’s did when she was working on a tricky drawing. Ms. Nelson would not have made a successful waitress if she had this much trouble balancing two drinks. Andy hid a smile, half amused, half captivated by the evidence of imperfection. He was beginning to realize that he couldn’t think straight around this woman, and that there was a lot more to her than the efficiency and the plans.

They sat and sipped the chocolate. She asked him about his firewood supply. Would he mind if she lit the fire each night until the evenings were warmer? Or was that a nuisance, her using up the wood? Would he prefer her to use the furnace?

“The fire is fine,” he told her. “I have one on my side, too, use it on snowy weekends mainly, when I’m planning to be home. There weren’t enough of those weekends this past winter, so there’s plenty left.”

“I love the tiled surround. And the hardwood mantel.” Her voice was lazy. She might not be able to sleep, but she’d lost the efficient edge he had heard in her daytime conversation.

It was so late.

So late, and he was beyond tired.

“They were boarded over when I first bought the house,” he told her, feeling lazy about speech, as well. His voice creaked a little. “There was some hideous death-trap gas thing in this one. I took it out and took a sledgehammer to the boards. That was a great moment, when I saw the tiling and hearth all still intact behind the mess.”

“Bet it was! I can imagine that hammer, too.” She smiled, and he wasn’t sure what she was thinking. “It was on my wish list, once, renovating an old house, but other things kept getting slotted in higher up.”

“May still happen. You never know. Life takes curves.”

He was getting sleepy. Really had been a long night. He’d only just gotten to sleep when the call had come from Gina Wilkins and her husband to say she was in active labor and they were heading to the hospital. Now it must be going on five.

He’d finished the chocolate. He put down the mug, but didn’t want to jump straight up and leave.

“Curves,” Claudia was saying. “It does.”

They both thought about that for a moment.

A long, sleepy moment, with the flames dancing before their eyes—maybe if he just closed his for a second—and the room so … deliciously … warm …

And dark.

And downy, tucked under his chin.

Soft comforter, felt just like his. He decided fuzzily that he must be in bed …

He was definitely asleep. Deeply and righteously asleep, not just dozing as Claudia had thought at first.

Thinking about life’s curves—like her parents’ bitter, drawn-out divorce when she was ten—she’d heard the subtle change in his breathing and in the stillness between them. She’d sat beside him for several minutes, thinking that at any moment he would startle out of sleep and mumble an apology and she would usher him to the door so they could both get to bed. She was starting to feel as if sleep might be a possibility for herself, at last.